By Lori Butterworth As we approach the end of the year, those of us who run local nonprofits are biting our nails reading predictions about how the proposed tax bill will affect charitable giving. It’s a reasonable concern as pundits fore...

Bruce Brown, who died Sunday, did not introduce surfing to Santa Cruz and other Central Coast beach areas, but with his iconic film, “The Endless Summer,” forever transformed the sport and the image of surfers. Sadly, Brown’...

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Editorials

Assessing blame for devastating wildfires is no easy task. Even when it’s apparent, either through investigation or arrests, that someone, or some entity, is at fault, these cases can be hard to prove. Last month’s Bear Fire in the area between Boulder Creek and Highway 17 has also drawn a lot of attention over how it started and whether local code enforcement might have prevented it. As the wildfire raged, reporters found multiple fire pits visible from the...

|on 11/11/2017

Editorials

By Kathleen Parker Washington Post ‘Tis the season of looking back, which brings us inevitably to Election Day 2016. Donald Trump’s victory places last year as one of the most significant in modern American history. Not only did he change how politics is played, but he probably destroyed the Republican Party as we knew it. Most important, he will go down as one of the most effective politicians of all time, at least beyond the Beltway. As with other...

|on 11/07/2017

Editorials

College — the cost of college — has become a divisive issue for many Californians. And the costs of colleges, especially California’s extensive public university system, are no less controversial. Of the latter, the recent firing of UC Santa Cruz’s admissions director pointed out the pressures schools face in an era of limited, if still substantial, state funding. The admissions director told a Sentinel reporter he believes he was fired because he...

|on 11/02/2017

Editorials

Despite the persistent efforts of President Trump and Republicans in Congress to sabotage the health insurance market, Covered California is alive and well. Open enrollment in the state’s exchange program began Wednesday and continues through Jan. 31. Thanks to careful planning, the vast majority of the 1.4 million enrolled in Covered California plans will be able to find affordable health insurance plans for 2018. Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee says 78...

|on 11/01/2017

Editorials

You can blame the Russians if you like. But don’t bother. The 12-cent hike in the taxes on a gallon of gasoline that some of us woke up to today, isn’t some troll farm misinformation, or Trumpian let-them-eat-cake “reform,” but the result of a very real action taken by your state Legislature earlier this year. Senate Bill 1 was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown, who vigorously supported the measure that will raise more than $52 billion over the next...

|on 10/31/2017

Editorials

Who killed the JFK files? For conspiracy theorists — whose ranks include the president of the United States — Thursday’s so-called “release” of documents related to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, was more of a tease than a consummation of years of waiting. That’s because after a chaotic last-minute lobbying effort by U.S. intelligence agencies, the White House said it would take more time to review and release...

|on 10/28/2017

Editorials

Our most beloved national parks are being loved to death. They face a $12 billion maintenance backlog. Leave it to the Trump administration to come up with the worst possible remedy for a system Wallace Stegner famously called America’s best idea. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Tuesday proposed a huge jump in the entrance fees during peak season to pay for maintenance of many of America’s most popular national parks — to $70 per car for Yosemite, Grand...

|on 10/26/2017

Editorials

There is no bright light falling on the local housing market, only shadows. At least, that’s true for the majority of Santa Cruz County residents, who hope to buy a home or condo or rent one. The continuing escalation of prices and shrinking supply of homes and condos for sale might be good news, though, for those who already own property here, but only if they plan on moving somewhere cheaper — which is virtually anywhere outside coastal California. Unless...

|on 10/25/2017

Editorials

Gov. Jerry Brown, soon to enter his last year in office, is ending well. Using his veto power, Brown upheld due process rights for students accused of sexual assault, stopped multibillion dollar telecom companies from getting carte blanche to put cell phone antennas anywhere they want on taxpayer-owned public property and rejected a bill to take disputes over water rights away from the State Water Resources Control Board. The cell antenna bill was the most flagrant sellout by the...

|on 10/21/2017

Editorials

The fire that broke out early Tuesday morning in the Santa Cruz Mountains isn’t a reprise of the deadly wine country fires of the past week and a half. Unlike that series of wildfires, no one has lost their life and the number of structures and acreage burned are dwarfed by what happened in the Napa, Sonoma and Mendocino county fires. But that feeling of dread, of “could it be happening here too?” was impossible to put out of mind. Never mind that Tuesday,...